Over the age of 50? Considering retirement? In his new book, Is Self-Employment for You? Paul Casey asks, “Why stop, when you have the energy to keep going?”

As Americans’ life expectancy continues to rise, it’s not uncommon to anticipate living decades beyond today’s retirement age. Running a business keeps you in a healthy, active life where you are continuing to achieve and meet goals.

“Life experience is the #1 qualifier for running a successful business,” says Paul Casey. “When you’re older, you’ve experienced setbacks, you’re more seasoned, you have bounced back from those setbacks and you’ve seen the way things work first-hand.” Paul Casey believes experience cannot be taught, but can only be achieved over time. “The 50+ population should not be intimidated by our youth-oriented market,” says Casey. “They are actually more likely to succeed than their younger counterparts.” As an example, Casey believes that one of the reasons why many businesses of the dot.com era failed was due to young, less experienced entrepreneurs starting up companies they weren’t equipped with the life experience to successfully sustain.

“Is Self-Employment For You?” delivers the ‘street smarts’ they don’t teach in business school and unconventional ideas that turn everything you thought you knew about business upside down. In fact, they are proven, on-the-job lessons gleaned over the course of Casey’s impressive career — first in state government office, then as a public relations account executive, public affairs director for a downtown Seattle transit tunnel, the first director of the Alzheimer’s Association of Western Washington, and finally as owner of his own communications firm since 1988 where he has produced and hosted his own radio show and newspaper.

Casey’s ideas make an argument for why business plans can’t be carved in stone and the customer is not always right. He discusses why competitors can be your best friends, real entrepreneurs don’t need partners, and many businesses fail because they have too much money.